Towns Grew Mighty

Not all mining towns died away after the ore was gone.  Some achieved permanence and grew into major cities - case in point, Denver.  The area around Pike's Peak had been rumored to be full of gold.  In 1850 prospectors headed for California found traces of it, but not enough to stay.  By 1858 a small group of miners spread word of another Sutter's Mill-like find,  By March of 1859, wagon trains were forming along the Missouri River with "Pike's Peak or Bust" on them.

About 50,000 seekers flooded into the new town of Denver.  Few were rewarded for their effort in gold, however.  Their wagons now read "Busted, by God!" and were known as "go-backs" as they went back home. Still thousands remained and in the 1870s they actually found a bonanza of silver. 

Another town called "the Gateway to the Mother Lode" was Sacramento.  In 1839 John Augustus Sutter had founded his baronial estate there at the junction of the Sacramento and America Rivers.  When Sutter came near to bankruptcy, he transferred his property to his son, who founded the town of Sacramento that same year.  Steamboat traffic sprang up on the river, carrying freight and passengers from San Francisco to the mines.  It became a headquarters and supply depot for those headed for high country.

When the mining boom ended, Sacramento was already the state capital and the center of farming of the Great Valley.  It became the westernmost point of overland mail and stage line, in 1869 the transcontinental railroad brought more fame. 

Next time - The Famous Comstock Lode
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On July 27, 1806, Meriwether Lewis shoots a Blackfoot Indian trying to steal his horses. The Blackfoot were one of the fiercest tribes of the Great Plains around the Marias River.  Lewis had hoped to meet peacefully with the Blackfoot but that all changed with the shooting.